So bad news for y'all, I'm for you today. My name is Jack again. I'm the director of discipleship. And first off, just thank y'all for being here and coming.
This is just a really big special day. And if you really think about it, it's what it's all about. It's this community and family and being there and supportive one another. And it really does kind of, in a way, tie into what we're talking about today.
So I have a very bad problem. I get myself into situations that I'm usually not prepared for. And then also, then I panic. And I kind of freak out.
And I think I can't do this. I lock up. And it's these big picture ideas. I'm a big picture guy.
I like looking at the overall thing. And I freak out. And for me, probably the best example I have of that would be college. College is something I'm dyslexic.
It's never something I really thought I would do. I didn't go to college after high school. I went and got my commercial pod's license. And I wound up not doing that because Jesus happened.
And he's like, hey, I want you to get up in front of people. I get really nervous talking and communicating. You wouldn't think it. But these big picture things can be very terrifying, very scary.
If I wouldn't have had a support group or a structure, which was the Wesley Foundation I'm representing today, I wouldn't have made it. I wouldn't become a Christian. I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have in my life. When I would come up with an obstacle in my life, like writing a paper, my last semester had a write a 10 page final.
That was hard. I do not like writing. I cannot type quickly. I usually have to get someone to come and type stuff for me.
And every time that something like that happens, this community, this Wesley Foundation, always had someone there to help me through it. Whenever I didn't think I could do something, whenever I didn't think I was strong enough or big enough, or whatever, they were there. And so that's kind of what I want to think about today. That's what I want us to look at the scripture with today, is we have this obstacle.
We have this calling that's terrifying. If we really think about what's at stake, but with community, think about it, we can do it. So our scripture for today is from Luke. It's chapter 9, verse 57 through 62.
And as they were walking along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus replied, Foxes have dens and birds have nests. But the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. He said to another man, follow me.
But he replied, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Still another said, I will follow you Lord.
But first let me go back and say goodbye to my family. Jesus replied, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. That's a lot. This is one of those verses that should scare you.
I look at this and I think I don't want to be homeless. I don't want to go work in a field and use a hand-held plow. But it's a lot. And when we look at this first two verses, this first guy that comes up to Jesus, this wasn't an uncommon event.
See, at the time, a disciple would go and they would find a rabbi. Then they would go and they would live with this rabbi for a while. They would read the Torah and learn. This is still practiced in several communities around the world.
They would also mimic their lifestyle. They would measure how many steps they would take on this habit. They would be as close to their teacher as they possibly could. And so this guy is coming with this expectation to Jesus.
He's coming with this framework that he has built around himself just from the culture. And Jesus has to manage the expectations a little bit. And what he tells them is, dude, I'm homeless. And if you follow me, you're going to be homeless too.
Jesus requires or is dependent upon other people to have a place to stay at night. And he has to rely on the generosity of others. Think about this for a second. The person that created us came to live with us and was rejected by us.
And he's just kind of running around doing his thing. And so Jesus has to manage his expectation. He's telling him, look, if you follow me, it's worth it. But it's going to be more akin to an old school prophet than it is for this kind of comfy lifestyle that you're thinking about.
Then Jesus talks to the next person. And he tells him to follow me. He says, Lord, first, let me go bury my father. And Jesus said, look, the dead, bury the dead.
But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Jesus isn't telling this dude, hey, don't go take care of your family. Don't go take care of your problems. I'll talk to several people this week who, like someone actually said that to them.
And that's not what Jesus is about. What Jesus is saying in the time, this guy is probably already buried his dad. This process takes up to about a year. So what they would do is they would bury the body.
About a year later, they would dig it back up. They would take the bones, put it in a box, and then put it in the tube. So what Jesus is saying is, you need to follow me now. You don't need to take this year off from me.
The best way for me to translate this to modern time is campus ministry. There are plenty of people who'd say, I'll work on my relationship with Christ after I graduate. Or when I finally have time. So Jesus says, I'm more important than that.
Jesus is saying, I'm more important than the things that are going to keep you from me. And you have to make time for me. This whole situation would have been a lot easier if Jesus was already in this guy's life. And those people that I talked to my friends who they went through and they did all this, and they got a job.
They are where they wanted to go. They quickly find out that you never have time. They quickly found out that if you don't make time, you're not going to do it. And they never did.
And so Jesus is really calling us beyond this and past this. But in the next part, the dead, buried, dead, there are a lot of problems in this world. There are a lot of things that are going to distract us and keep us from focusing. And Jesus is saying that your focus needs to be me, and you need to let everything else be handled by someone else.
Because there are a lot of people who can go out and they can do good things. They can do things that this world needs. But when it comes to this, you're the only one that can go and proclaim the good news. You're the only one that can go and share the gospel.
And that's why he tells him that he needs to go do. Because if you think about all the bad stuff and the junk and the reason that we have to bury the dead, where does it come from? It comes from separation from God. And we're the only ones that can actually deal with it because of the relationship we have with God.
And that means we actually have to go and preach. Now, as you can tell, I'm a little nervous. This is a big crowd. But this isn't the only way to go and share the good news.
Because there are six other days in the week, and this is just 20 minutes of your time. There's a famous quote. And I love it. It says that all times here at the gospel, but when absolutely necessary, use words.
A.W. Tozer says in his book, The Pursuit of God, he describes that they're two kind of people. He says they're the scribes who can go out and they can tell you everything there is about God. They can quote the Bible.
They can read off scriptures and stuff like that. But they're talking about someone who is active 2,000 years ago and then just kind of stop doing stuff. Then they're the prophets. The prophets are the people who have a personal relationship with God.
They're the people that can go out and tell you what God is doing in their life. They can tell you from personal experience what they've seen God do. And that's what we're called to do, is to go out and share the good news. It has to be good news to us.
It has to be something that we're actively experiencing and working on. And then still, another said, I will follow you, Lord. But first, let me go back and say goodbye to my family. Jesus replied, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.
OK? That's a big deal. So what we need to take from that is that, one, Jesus takes us as a dodge. I kind of think about it like this guy is like, hey, let me run the restroom real quick.
I'll play my check and then walks out the front door. Never comes back. What Jesus is saying is that we have to be all in. We have to have an extreme amount of focus to land where this place is incredibly rocky.
And so if you have a handheld plow and you're making the rose for the crops, and you look away, if you don't have that focus that is necessary, that is necessary, you're going to mess up the rose. And you're going to stop. You're going to have to reset. You're going to have to keep going.
And it's just going to take more time. It's going to be frustrating. What Jesus is saying is that this life, if you do not pursue me, if you do not follow me, and you don't start now, you're going to stumble. And there's going to be mess ups.
And it's going to be a lot harder than it would be than if we just go and do it now. And it requires dedication. And it's going to be a long and hard road. And that scares me.
That scares me because of one, the time that it takes to do all of this. It scares me because this person that Jesus is calling us to be is I feel like he's out of my grasp, who he's calling me to be, to the person that has focus, the person that can go out and proclaim the good news without being terrified before he walks up or almost blowing his gear drum out with a mic. I mean, it's a scary thing. But I have to remember where I came from.
I have to remember that I'm these disciples who don't know Jesus. I'm going up to him and asking him to teach me. And this is relationship. It's this process.
It's this idea that Rome wasn't built in a date. I decided to go with a kind of a different direction on the sermon instead of just telling you, OK, this is what we have to do. This is what Jesus is calling us to do to how do we get there? How do we get to this idea of getting out of our comfort zone to follow Jesus, to be rejected by the world, and to also reject the ways of the world?
How do we get to the spark where we're comfortable going and preaching to gospel, and then also letting people take care of things that we probably shouldn't be taking care of. I mean, that requires control and trusting God. And that focus, how do we get there? It's a process.
But all we have to do is look at what kind of relationship these people were getting into. They were coming to learn. They were coming to become a part of a community. If you look at the Methodist Church, if you didn't know that were Methodists by the way, communities, it's foundation.
The group system that John Wesley created went from a few thousand people in America to 2.5 million in a generation. That's a lot. And it's because of the community. And that means it's not a Sunday morning thing.
That means it is a weekly thing. So our step here, a boundary of further faithfulness, our step here of following God is working on that community. And there's a couple ways that we can do that. If you go to wearefoundry.com, there's a group page.
And that means we need to create small groups. That means we need to walk together. That means we need to support each other. I have a problem reading the Bible every day.
And if I didn't have the staff who are reading the Bible in a hundred days, I wouldn't do it. I have proven that my entire life. If it wasn't for Chad, if it wasn't for Alan at the Wesley, my prayer life wouldn't be where it needs to be. I would not be the man that I am.
I would have crashed and burned a long time ago. But that's because I had that support structure there. And so this life is hard. And we need one another to do it.
We need to focus on Christ. And we believe that we're better together. So please, be thinking about who is in your community. Thinking about who you need in your life.
Think about one who is discipling you, who is walking along beside you, and then who are you pouring into. Because this is the life that Christ has called us to follow. And we can't do it alone. So please back heads with me.
Definitely Father, I thank you for this day. I thank you for this time. And I just thank you so much for all you do for us. You're such a good Father.
You care so much about us. And everything you call us to do, everything you lead us to, you don't leave us alone. You're there every step of the way, Lord. And I pray that you just continue to bless us, Lord, and continue to help us focus on your name and pray.
Amen.